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DA+A – This 6 Weeks

The project will be broken up into smaller parts, like planning a story, designing characters, and etc. We’ll talk more about that later though.

Minor Assignment 1
For now, do some research on interactive comics. Not all interactive comics are the same, some are nicer than others, some more interactive than others. Find one, and tell me about it. How does it different from a regular comic, and what features does it have that make it interactive?

Minor Assignment 2
Tell me who’s in your small group and provide me a brief description of what you think you’ll make.

Major Assignment 1

This has four parts: planning your story, setting, characters, and interactivity.

It may, or may not be in the order below though. You can always start in a different order, or bounce back and forth of these things during your planning, making modifications as appropriate.

1st: Story Planning
Create an outline of the main story arc. A story typically has a stage of stasis (everyday life), then a trigger that results in an rising conflict that will eventually reach a climax before resolving the story. Depending on the size of your group and the level of sophistication or detail intended in the finished product, you may have to cut things out due to time. However, it’d be better to plan a little too much, then to have to try to plan stuff in later that fits within the story and makes sense.

2nd: Creating your Characters
Who are they? Where do they come from? What’s their background? What do they hope to do with their life? How do they relate to your other characters? Why do we care about them? What makes them interesting? Everybody has a history, desires, goals, and relationships with others.- and people change over time. Everyone on this planet is dynamic, don’t plan any flat one-dimensional characters. You can have some if you need to of course, but they wouldn’t be main characters, just really more a prop for a scene.

3rd: Determining the Setting
Where’s it take place? When (today, a hundred years ago, a hundred year in the future) does it take place? How does the setting affect the storyline? How does the setting affect the characters? This probably requires some research. For example, our lives (and our own personal stories of them) would be very different if we lived in the middle of New York, or if we lived in Cairo Egypt two years ago, or in the middle of the Congo.

Thats all setting on a macro scale, but of course the setting on a micro scale can make a big difference too. Is the main setting a school? a stadium? a restaurant? a business? the suburbs or inner city? Of course, your story may visit different locations.

Time can be a factor too. Does it take place today, two years ago, a hundred years ago, a hundred years into the future? Does it take place mid afternoon, or in the middle of the night? Of course, parts of the story may take place in different times too.

4th: Plan the Interactivity
Interactivity means it interacts with the user. It’s not just an animation, but should have interactivity too. The user should be able to interact with it. This could include clicking on things to make things happen, mouse overs, or even being given choices. It can include some animation too, but animation alone isn’t interactivity. So, what do you want the user to be able to do? If you have questions, let me know.